User blog:WilliamTheFourteenth/Decisions That Need to be Made
Hi, everyone. Hope you are having a good day, or night, or unspecificed time of day! There are some things that have been turning over in my mind awhile, that I believe need to be resolved—or at the very least, discussed—by the users and contributors of this wikia. As evident from my research and the research of others on this wiki, the original creator of this wikia is no longer discernably active on this site. We have really no idea what their goal or vision was for this site or this AU. In essence, this site was a building that people began to raise up, but nobody really knew what purpose it should serve, what materials to use, or what it is supposed to look like—and it still stands half-finished. I assume that this wikia's original intentions were threefold: to develop the complexity and details of the Reverse Falls AU, to share it with interested fans/writers/creators, and to educate others about it. But we can never know for sure. Essentially, we lack ground rules—directions—precendents off of which to operate. We've experienced a number of issues on ths site, ranging from misinformation to outright inappropriate comments within the text of pages. The frequent contributors of this site have simply regulated those issues based off of their own judgement. So far, there have been no major disagreements and all decisions have been sound and just. However, in the future—especially as there are very limited numbers of frequent contributors—something needs to be decided. This would be an extremely beneficial frame of reference in the event that the small group of current contributors can no longer access or regulate the site, if a disagreement arises about the site's usage/content, or if new users of the site have questions. Here are a few major points I feel need to be addressed: 1. Who will the admins be—should an individual or group be designated, or should the site remain open, with every contributor having equal "weight"? There are no official admins designated aside from the currently-absentee creator, so should a sincere conflict of opinion arise, how will decisions be made? Will there be a popular vote? Should "anonymous contributors" have the same weight as account-holders when it comes to editing? 2.' How should AU information be vetted and included? ' There is no one, all-encompassing fanfiction for Reverse Falls, and of most of the widely-agreed-upon information is extremely general. Should we categorize/prioritize facts by the number of fanfictions they appear in? Should polls be taken? Should all possible interpretations of Reverse Gideon's character, for example, be listed on his page, or should the main ones be shown with footnotes for the other ideas? Should individually-created OCs be allowed (since, after all, characters like Clucks are OCs themseves)? Should the AU be allowed to grow and change with time, or should only the "original" headcanon be permitted? Is a peer-review system necessary, and if so, how can be designate whether an article has been "approved" or not? 3. How should the usage of this website be regulated? Should roleplaying be allowed in comments, message walls, discussion threads, or none of the above? What information belongs on a discussion thread and what information belongs on a blog? Where should the contributors of the site look to for updates and regulations? How should writers communicate about questions, where should users go to ask general questions? 4. How should the family-friendliness of this site be measured and noted? We are, after all, helping to create one of the most popular AUs of the Gravity Falls universe. Despite all of the moments where Gravity Falls sure didn't seem like a kid's show, it is meant for the enjoyment of all ages. This site will most likely get a lot of Web traffic from preteens and teenagers, so we have a certain amount of responsibilty for the content of this site. We need to decide specifics—what content should and should not be allowed on this site? What disclaimers should we add for pages that may contain sesitive topics/information? 5. How should languages be used? Personally, I would love to see this site become translated into various languages. There are several users on this site who speak Spanish and French, and many more fans of Gravity Falls that speak various others. How can we make this site more accomodating for them, or should a whole separate site be created for another language's version of the AU?. This point, however, is a proposition for possible later project once the site is more fixed up, with some form of an established charter. I sincerely apologize if these sorts of propositions or questions are out of line for someone who did not create this site. I don't want to limit anyone's freedom in proposing any of this, but in looking at this Wikia, I see so much untapped potential and think that addressing these questions would help it improve drastically, or at least give everyone that wants to see this site succeed an idea as to what we can do. Have a wonderful day! —WilliamTheFourteenth Category:Blog posts